Dedicated to the definitive superhero non-team.


Sunday, November 8, 2015

Chaotic Good: Non-Team

To keep in step with an online meme, this is the first in a series of posts looking at the Defenders through the lens of the nine alignments popularized in early editions of Dungeons & Dragons.

The first word of an alignment tells if a character favors Lawful (social order) or Chaotic (individualism). The second word describes a character as Good or Evil. The option of Neutral falls between each pair, with True Neutral in the middle.

  Lawful Good    Neutral Good    Chaotic Good  
  Lawful Neutral    True Neutral    Chaotic Neutral  
  Lawful Evil    Neutral Evil    Chaotic Evil  

In a conversation from Defenders #6 (Vol. 2), Sub-Mariner asked Nighthawk why he remained so loyal to the group. Nighthawk explained that being part of the Defenders allowed him to work on the side of good without all the rules and regulations of a team like the Avengers.

Heroes with a variety of alignments may have joined the Defenders over the years, but this loosely structured non-team approach that so encapsulated the Defenders was inherently Chaotic Good.

Defenders. Vol. 2. No. 6. "Rumble in the Sky." August 2001. Kurt "Ugly-Man" (dumb writers) Erik "Funny-Head" Larsen (puny artists) Al "Big-Ears" Gordon, Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Gregory Wright & Tom Smith's Color Arts (colors), Marc Sumerak (hates Hulk), Tom Brevort (hounds Hulk), Joe Quesada (won't leave Hulk alone), Bill Jemas (leave Hulk alone—or Hulk will smash!)

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